After just reading The Tripods Attack, I read with interest the article in the recent Gilbert magazine which was about GKC's relationship with HG Wells. Wells is a character in the above mentioned novel.
I found it fascinating to read the difference between GKC's and Wells's relationship, and Belloc and Wells's relationship. And this difference is where Chesterton's sainthood cause comes into play. I would be far more likely to react like Belloc, and carry things too far when it comes to differences in opinion. In fact, I've done that. I've gone too far and now there are people who won't talk to me.
I wish I could be more like Chesterton. Still able to be friends with people you totally disagree with. To be able to separate the person from the ideas.
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Perhaps the answer is not to separate them, but simply to see that they are more than their ideas.
ReplyDeleteNick,
ReplyDeleteYes, this is good advice. We people are more than our ideas, but we fight for our ideas, and they do say a lot about who we are. Still, I wish I were more Chestertonian about people.
There are two primary reasons the Church poposes Saints - they're there for our intersession and for our imitation.
ReplyDeleteThis may be a way for you to engage the (for now at best future) sainthood of Gilbert - by emulating his virtue. I too find it a difficult road to follow. Yet a person of his stature, though he makes the widest trail, it's a most precarious path.
Difficult, yes, but WWGD?